Communist Tunnel in Port Dickson – Part 3

12 till 14 October 2013

On 13 Oct 2013 (Sun), we visited the biggest war memorial museum in Malaysia. You may wonder what has PD, a beach resort, to do with a war memorial. Well, PD is an army town. It was officially declared such way back in 2009. Seems PD is home to many army camps, almost 10,439 (as of Mar 2012) officers and servicemen live here.

The place is called "Muzium Tentera Darat Port Dickson" or Port Dickson Army Museum

PD's history is kind of complicated....it was first a simple charcoal town until a British Officer by the name of Sir Frederick Dickson 'found' it, and British then decided to use it as a port but this plan did not quite work out. British later turned it to a colonial beach resort. And just 4 years ago PD was turned into an army town. 

Saw this on the wall of the Musuem - a wood carving of Malay folk heros

The Museum is huge, so be prepared to spend at least half a day here. The entrance is free.

This military cargo plane can be seen at the entrance - it was in use once

Hey, there are cats sleeping in here..cats napping in an armoured vehicle?

The best part is visitors can enter some of the army vehicles and take pictures. 

steamlocomotive - visitors can access the engine room

What's this? Harish inside the engine room

Time to explore

Simmha and Arvin - trying to figure out which way it rotates

Time capsule

There were many exhibits on different eras of Malaysian history right from the time of the Melaka Sultanate till Malaysia's independence.

Replica of a Malacca ship

Replica of a Portuguese ship

Malacca palace utensils

The guns used by the Portuguese & namelist of Portuguese rulers in Malacca

The uniform of Dutch soldiers

The communist tunnel is a major attraction and it displays replicas of soldiers in jungle warfare. Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out and so I could not snap pictures. We spent most of our time here trying to understand life in an underground tunnel as lived by the communist fighters.

At the entrance to the communist tunnel

 (source : http://www.fantasticmalaysia.com)

 

 (source : http://www.fantasticmalaysia.com)

 

There was also a canopy walk built by the army for visitors, children would love this.

on the rope bridge

At the centre of all exhibits sits a memorial with  a long list of names of fallen soldiers. Seeing these names makes the dying real and there were so many names, including names of British officers and their Gurkhas. 

The museum is open daily from 9.30am - 6pm. It is located at the 5th Mile in the Sirusa district, about 7km from PD town.